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Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Writing Words for Nerds #AtoZChallenge‑‑S is for Stories (and where to find them)

As many writers will tell you, the first
rule of being a good writer is to read, and read, and read some more.

But I like
to think it goes beyond that. You can’t simply read like any other reader; you
have to read like a writer. You have
to take apart what you read and figure out what works and what doesn’t and why.
You have to take what you’ve learned, and you have to apply it to your own
writing.

I also think
it goes beyond stories written in books. There are stories in every medium
imaginable. There are stories in movies, TV shows, songs, and art. But it goes
beyond that, too. The truth is there are stories pretty much everywhere you
look.

In Toren the
Teller’s Tale, young Toren learns that every person, every object, and
even forces like the wind have their own unique stories. If she can read a
thing’s complete story, that thing becomes a part of her. She can control it,
but only if that thing wants to be controlled. And when she fully knows a thing’s
story, she can retell it in a single word that brings that thing to life. This
is her unique magic, the magic of the storyteller.

While Toren the
Teller’s Tale is an epic fantasy, there’s a part of it that’s, well,
not a fantasy at all. The truth is that every person and every object does have a story. You have to crack it
open like an egg, take it apart and figure it out to discover the story hidden
within.

Just pick up
any object, the object closest to you. Who made that? Where did it come from?
How did it get to you? Who were the people who affected or were affected by its
journey? And isn’t it interesting to think that someone at the start of its
journey in some small way affected you at this stage of its journey? You’re
connected to each other through this object. You’re connected to every person
along its path. And that’s just one object. Look around you. How many people
affected or were affected by the objects just in your immediate vicinity? And
role did they play in that object’s story?

But it’s
even more than that. Because every person, every object, holds millions of possible stories. How could this object have arrived here?
Where could it have gone instead? And
what could happen to it in the
future? How would that affect the people involved? The potential stories are infinite.
And if you believe the Many Worlds theory of quantum physics, what’s even
crazier is that they could all be true, somewhere out in our amazing universe.

In his
autobiographical book, Rewrites: A Memoir, playwright Neil Simon
says (I’m paraphrasing), “Writer’s block isn’t when a writer has no ideas; it’s
when a writer has so many ideas and doesn’t trust himself to choose the right
one.”

With so many
stories around us all the time, that truly is
a dilemma. How do you choose the right one?

I like
improv’s answer. There is no right and no wrong choice. There’s just a choice, and you have to make it or let
the audience make it for you. Whatever the choice is, you have to commit to it 100%. I guess you could say the only
wrong choice is not choosing or not committing to what’s been chosen.

I see dozens
of stories around me every day, and I throw almost all of them out.

It’s not
because I haven’t committed to a choice. It’s because I am already 100% committed
to choices I’ve already made, stories I have thought out in my mind or outlined
on paper but haven’t had time to turn into fully formed manuscripts. Like the
persona in Robert Frost’s “Stopping
by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” I “have promises to keep/And miles to go
before I sleep.”

But the
stories are there, inside my head. Don’t ask me what I’m thinking. You probably
don’t want to know.

I once sat
with a guy near a bonfire and watched the ashes float in the hot air above the flames. He
leaned in and said, “You’re a writer. I bet you’re thinking something about the
poetic beauty of the fire.” I smiled and nodded, although what I was really
thinking was “Wouldn’t it be funny if some prehistoric caveman who was obsessed
with flight saw those ashes and thought he could fly if he could somehow sew or
glue the ashes together? And after a few failed attempts, it might occur to him
that it had something to do with the fire. He’d wonder if he could fly if he
could just somehow throw himself on the fire at just the right angle. Maybe he
could test that theory by tossing a friend over it. Hey, maybe that’s what gave
J.M. Barrie the idea for pixie dust!”

See? There's a reason why I don't tell the stories I don't tell and focus instead on the ones I do.